You are within your rights to do how you want, but you’ll catch some hell.
I know 6 people in the trans community now, none of whom have “detransitioned” and none of whose judgement I would question. I was lucky to spend a long time in both boarding school and college and every trans person I know was and is of unimpeachable character and intellect. My argument to you is that it cost you nothing to trust that any person is their own best judge of their needs and perspectives. In the worst case, you end up on a position to have a frank discussion with someone you have always supported. If the shoe were on the other foot, I know I would feel pretty salty if my friends or acquaintances thought they knew my struggles better than I did.
There’s nothing to be gained from yelling at you or anyone else who isn’t “on board”, but just like other social issues, I don’t think it’s the job of your friendly neighborhood trans person to explain to you either (and that’s a totally separate tough place to get to). I would rather step up and try my best to do that role myself.
I don’t really want to make transgender people explain themselves. Because I don’t think it would be productive randomly sharing my opinion with them unsolicited and making it personal. I don’t see how it would help either or be productive. Every trans person I’ve know or have known has had other things going on underlying, quite often they were the victims of sexual abuse as well. It’s kind of hard seeing someone do something unhealthy yet you know if you point it out to them they’d be deeply hurt, because of society telling them they should be.
You are within your rights to do how you want, but you’ll catch some hell.
I know 6 people in the trans community now, none of whom have “detransitioned” and none of whose judgement I would question. I was lucky to spend a long time in both boarding school and college and every trans person I know was and is of unimpeachable character and intellect. My argument to you is that it cost you nothing to trust that any person is their own best judge of their needs and perspectives. In the worst case, you end up on a position to have a frank discussion with someone you have always supported. If the shoe were on the other foot, I know I would feel pretty salty if my friends or acquaintances thought they knew my struggles better than I did.
There’s nothing to be gained from yelling at you or anyone else who isn’t “on board”, but just like other social issues, I don’t think it’s the job of your friendly neighborhood trans person to explain to you either (and that’s a totally separate tough place to get to). I would rather step up and try my best to do that role myself.
I don’t really want to make transgender people explain themselves. Because I don’t think it would be productive randomly sharing my opinion with them unsolicited and making it personal. I don’t see how it would help either or be productive. Every trans person I’ve know or have known has had other things going on underlying, quite often they were the victims of sexual abuse as well. It’s kind of hard seeing someone do something unhealthy yet you know if you point it out to them they’d be deeply hurt, because of society telling them they should be.